Project Management hints and tips, tricks and advice
This is a guest post by Conrado Morlan, the Smart PM. Dear Smart PM… I am a new hire at the project management office of a large corporation. I had been working in project management for several years as a freelancer. Although I consider myself to be a good networker, I found difficulties networking within…
“Good morning, Elizabeth,” says the man at the coffee stand. “The usual?” “Yes, please.” I fiddle with my purse to get the correct change. “Sorry, I don’t have enough money,” I say. “I’ll just go to the cash machine.” I leave the counter and cross the street to the nearest cash point. When I get…
“Delivering value is the only real reason to undertake a project.” ‘The Principles of Project Management is part of the Sitepoint stable so, as you would expect, web projects feature heavily. However, it’s not about a web project management. I read it on a slow train to the Kent countryside (and back) and Meri Williams…
This is the last in a 3-part series about managing cross-cultural and international teams. Missed the earlier posts? Read the first bit here, and the second bit here.The biggest issues for international projects are cultural understanding and communication. The former isn’t something that can be neatly tackled by a software package. It relies on the…
This is part 2 of a 3-part series about managing cross-cultural and international teams. Missed part 1? Read it here. Project managers taking on international projects face a variety of practical challenges. For example, time zones are important. How will you conduct real-time team meetings? Who is going to be the person who gets up…
This is the first in a 3-part series about managing cross-cultural and international teams. The world of business is continually shrinking: we work in an environment with real-time audio visual communication with colleagues on the other side of the world and online translation tools. Even small companies can operate internationally with outsourcing agreements and partners…
Andrew Ball, head of IT Performance Audit at the Audit Commission, was one of the speakers at last week’s BPUG Congress. He spoke during a session in the strategic project and programme management strand about how to cope when projects go wrong. The main thrust of his argument was trying to avoid projects going wrong…
The UK Government’s Public Accounts Committee has put together a report called ‘Delivering successful IT-enabled business change,‘ about how government projects are performing. The report concludes that some projects actually turn out pretty well, but those learnings are not carried across to other projects run by other departments. This won’t come as a surprise to…
I found this white paper about putting together a business case on IT Toolbox. It depends on how you interpret the term ‘business case’ but for me this document is more a feasibility study: what is the problem, what could we do about it and what have we decided to do. A ‘pure’ business case…
New country (well, returning to the one I left). New city. New department. New commute. My relocation went pretty well, all things considered, although Hans’ confidence in my ability to get everything to the right place was a bit optimistic. I had to buy a new hairbrush, as mine is in storage somewhere. I also…
When I was young I vowed never to be a ‘cabbage yakker’. That is, a woman who talks about the price of cabbages as if they were the most important thing in the whole world. I’m sure there are women for whom cabbages are very important, but I didn’t want to be one of them….
I was given a fab new wheelie suitcase as a gift at the weekend, which is great as I seem to be doing a lot of travelling at the moment. On the way to the UK at the weekend I found myself sitting next to a guy in a leather jacket. He obviously wasn’t taking…